Bible Study With The Bishops: Just Tell The Story!

Reading Plan Text for April 29: John 11:7-16

I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one that has trouble with John from time to time. Elizabeth Kaeton in her sermon this past Sunday said

I must confess that sometimes, when reading the Gospel of John, I can get myself so tangled up in his use of words and convoluted sentence structure that I either get frustrated and annoyed or, well, sometimes I just get downright silly. I mean, listen again to this: “On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.”

I confess that as I tried to pray into these words, I was interrupted by the words of another John – Lennon, that is – which buzzed into the quiet of my meditation like a mosquito in the thick of summer: “I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together." That of course, is from Lennon's "I am the Walrus."

Free association being what it is (and, of course, potentiated by a lovely glass of wine) it’s not a far jump from there, to Lewis Carroll’s poem of ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’:

"The time has come/the Walrus said/“To talk of many things/ Of shoes and ships and sealing-wax / Of cabbages and kings /And why the sea is boiling hot/And whether pigs have wings”.

See what I mean? Reading the Gospel of John can lead you through quite a jumble of words and thoughts and lead you to take flights of fantasy.

Do go and read her sermon in its entirety, it is well worth the time.

Today I reached both frustration and annoyance. I want to grab John by the shoulders and shake him until his teeth rattle! I want to shout in his face, "Just tell the story, you fool! Stop making everything so f***ing convoluted!"

Over and over again, John shows us that neither the Jews nor Jesus' disciples fully understand what he tells them. When he tells them "Lazarus has fallen asleep," a common euphemism for death, John has them respond, "Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right." At which point John clarifies the issue for us:

Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead." (11:11-14)

I doubt that either the disciples or John's community were so thick as to miss the use of "fallen asleep" as a way of saying "died." It must be John taking the opportunity to make sure we see that those around Jesus did not fully understand who and what he was (and is) until it was too late. John wants to be certain that his community does not make the same mistake. By this point, however, it is simply overkill.

We can sum up these 10 verses this way:

• Jesus is the light of the world
• Those who don't believe will stumble in the dark
• Lazarus died so Jesus can show who he is

See how much simpler that is, John?

Peace,
Jeffri